Bruce Dawe Essay

Bruce Dawe, an Australian known poet, born 1930 is still one of the biggest selling and most highly regarded poets of Australia. His ability to write such influential poems has made an impact on a number of people, as each poem can be related to the ordinary living lives of Australians throughout the years. Bruce Dawe's poems are interesting because they comment on the lives of ordinary people. This statement is agreed on. In relation to the statement, three key poems can be linked being Enter Without So Much as Knocking (1959), Homo Suburbiensis (1964) and Drifters (1968). In the first poem mentioned: Enter Without So Much as Knocking, Dawe shows the living of a child in the Baby Boomers period, and the era after World War 2 (1950's to early 60's). The government had just released an election promise for any mother who beared a child to receive a 'money' bonus in return for adding to Australia's population. With around 3 babies per family on average during this time period, Dawe represents children born in that time period as if being born manufacturing, hence Bruce Dawe's poems are interesting because they comment on the lives of ordinary people. The Poem Enter Without So Much as Knocking uses many poetic and literary techniques. These include imagery, similes, themes of sexism and stereotypes and rhetorical question. Dawe utilises the whole poem as imagery for the boy’s life. Dawe's creative sense made it so the audience who would read this poem would see that his life was a game show even in death. This example can be found when Dawe explores death in his sixth stanza. ''… gave him back for keeps/ the old automatic smile with nothing behind it, winding the whole show up with a/ nice ride out to the underground metropolis:/ permanent residentials, no parking tickets, no taximeters/ ticking, no Bobby Dazzlers here, no down payments,/ nobody grieving over halitosis/ flat feet shrinking gums falling hair.'' In this example, Dawe’s use of imagery